Allen Research Group

Dr. John T. Allen

j [dot] t [dot] allen [at] cmich [dot] edu
Dr. Allen is a meteorologist and climate scientist, originally from Sydney, Australia. He completed his B.S. Degree in Earth Sciences (Meteorology and Applied Mathematics) at the University of Melbourne, Australia, and went on to pursue an honors by research in meteorology and subsequently a doctorate at the same institution with support from an Australian Postgraduate Award. From 2013-2016 he completed a three-year Postdoctoral appointment at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society at Columbia University, before promotion to Associate Research Scientist and joined CMU in summer 2016. At CMU he is an Associate Professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, serves as Director of the Earth and Ecosystem Science Ph.D. program, and as coordinator of the Environmental Analytics minor. Beyond his research at CMU Dr Allen teaches Atmospheric Thermodynamics, Mesoscale Meteorology and Atmospheric Modeling, along with an introductory course on Severe and Unusual Weather.

Dr Allen's research interests span the operational forecasting of severe storms to applied analysis of risk statistics and how these events can be modulated by the climate system. Many of his publications focus on the climatology of historical severe weather events, and the response of these events to climate change and variability. This includes contributions to our understanding of severe thunderstorms and extreme weather over four continents, as well as exploring our global knowledge on the topic. His research and written contributions have been featured in Science, Nature, Scientific American, Climate.gov, Die Welt, The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Geographic, CBC News and ABC Radio National Australia. More recent research includes: an NSF Career award for improving our understanding of global severe thunderstorm frequency, an NSF funded project into the processes that produce large hail, applying climate information to chracterizing severe thunderstorm phenomena together with NIST, fieldwork as a co-lead of a National Geographic Expeditions Council funded project focusing on novel tornado observations, and application of novel statistical and machine learning methods to characterize atmospheric phenomena.

Group Members

Check out our Group Alumni

Opportunities

We always are always looking for new students to join the group at the Ph.D. level through the Earth and Ecosystem Science program. If you are interested in applying for an NSF GFRP or similar fellowship and wish to join our group, please contact Dr. Allen to discuss.

Other opportunities come up regularly! Projects could include those found through this page, but Dr. Allen is happy to work with students to find other sources of support. Feel free to email Dr. Allen with questions or to express your interest.

Postdoctoral Research Scientists

Dr. Deepak Gopalakrishnan

gopal1d [at] cmich [dot] edu
Google Scholar
Dr. Gopalakrishnan joined the group at CMU in Fall 2022, as part of the project Geospatial predictive analysis of damaging hail and wind occurrences in the lower 48 states and Canada . Deepak obtained a Masters degree in Meteorology from Cochin University of Science and Technology, India, and a PhD in Atmospheric Science from Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology. Deepak later worked at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology as a Project Scientist and at the New York University Abu Dhabi as a Postdoc. Deepak's research interests include weather and climate modeling, severe thunderstorms, and climate change.

Dr. Subhadarsini Das

das11s [at] cmich [dot] edu
LinkedIn
Google Scholar
Researchgate
Dr. Das joined the group at CMU in Summer 2023, as part of the project Quantifying the Risk and Impact of Wind and Hail Storms in a Warming Climate, and focuses on enhancing estimations of hail size and wind speed return levels, and explore how these change in a non-stationary framework. Dr. Das earned a Master of Technology in 2018 and completed her Ph.D. in Water Resources Engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Warangal in 2022. Her PhD work was based on drought characterization, propagation and risk over an Indian region. Her specialities include non-stationary extreme value analysis, risk analysis and societal impacts of meteorological events such as droughts.

Graduate Students

Carlos Mario Cuervo López

cuerv1cm [at] cmich [dot] edu
Twitter
Carlos joins the group at CMU in Spring 2021, pursuing his Ph.D. in the Earth and Ecosystem Science Program, supported by the NSF CAREER project 'Toward a Global Understanding of Severe Convective Environments' (NSF-AGS1945286). Carlos completed a Bachelors of Civil Engineering, and subsequently a Masters of Engineering in Hydraulic Resources at the Universidad Nacionale de Colombia at Medellin, Colombia.

Alan Jesus García Rosales

garci3aj [at] cmich [dot] edu
Alan joined the group at CMU in Summer 2021, pursuing his Ph.D. in the Earth and Ecosystem Science Program, supported by the NSF CAREER project 'Toward a Global Understanding of Severe Convective Environments' (NSF-AGS1945286). Alan completed a Bachelors of Science at National Agrarian University La Molina, Peru, and subsequently a Masters of Science at the Institute of Astronomy, Geophysics and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Sáo Paulo, Brazil. Alan was formerly an Advanced Environmental Modeling Analyst at the National Meteorology and Hydrology Service of Peru.

Aaron Zeeb

zeeb1a [at] cmich [dot] edu
Aaron joined the the group at CMU in Summer 2023, pursuing his Ph.D. in the Earth and Ecosystem Science Program, supported by the NSF project 'Developing a Structural, Morphological, and Microphysical Understanding of Left-moving Supercells'. Aaron completed a B.S. in Meteorology with a minor in Geography and a GIS certificate from Northern Illinois University. He has also recently achieved his M.S. in Atmospheric Science from the same institution where his thesis focused on analyzing the historic and projected climatic patterns of supercell precipitation. Aaron's primary research interests revolve around studying the dynamics and variability within severe convective storms, although his interests encompass a broad spectrum of mesoscale phenomena

Kaleb Clover

clove1kr [at] cmich [dot] edu
Kaleb joined the the group at CMU in Summer 2023, pursuing his Ph.D. in the Earth and Ecosystem Science Program, supported by the NIST Disaster Resilience project 'Quantifying the Risk and Impact of Wind and Hail Storms in a Warming Climate'.

Visiting Scientists and Graduate Students

Visitors are welcome - contact Dr. Allen.

Undergraduate Students

Mitchell Green

CMU Senior
Mitchell is working on a project exploring global differences in hail environments. He is currently an REU Intern at Colorado State University.